arabic shimmy

I first saw this video when I wandered into Tribal Fusion land in 2007. It's a video of the Indigo from 2005, featuring Rachel Brice, Mardi Love, Sharon Kihara, and Michelle Campbell. It blew my mind. Today when I watched it again, what I loved most was the clarity, synchronization, and certainty of the movement, especially in the Arabic Shimmies.

If you have ever taken class with me you know I'm pretty into Arabic Shimmy, as a movement on its own, but also as a learning tool for layering, for dissecting and playing with, and because, for me, it is movement that was super representative of the "early" Tribal Fusion aesthetic.

Of the vocabulary most commonly associated with Tribal and Tribal Fusion, I'd argue it's the most complex, with distinct foot and arm patterns, body isolations, and hip movements, each with their own qualities and timing.

For that reason and a few others, to me it's probably the key movement that separates a really honed technical dancer from someone who is still letting the vocabulary and technique settle in their body.